Axent Wear Cat Ear Headphones
[size=17.03px] A set of fashion headphones with loudspeaker-ears and coloured lights[/size]
[size=17.03px]Disclaimer[/size][size=17.03px]:[/size]
A friend of mine purchased these in the original indiegogo crowd-fund after I jokingly posted it to them.
Upon arrival it was clear the headphone had some sonic flaws, and I was more than happy to oblige in remedying them.
Build and Ergonomics:
The entire headphone seems to be built out of plastic, at least the only visible parts, and they're all screwed together.The black plastic is matte with a matte texture, while the purple is glossy with a smooth texture.
The cups can be folded for storage, but the storage case itself is enormous. It looks like a large shoe-box:
• 270 x 210 x 120mm
The cable entry and microphone entry are on the bottom of the left headphone cup.
The light, loudspeaker activation, USB-micro port and volume controls are bottom of the right ear cup.
The ear cups can swivel forwards about 15-20 degrees until they stop, but they can lie flat at 180 degrees if
folded back.
The headband cushion has the "Axent Wear" branding and is about medium density, so fairly squishy foam.
The ear pads seem to be the same density but thicker, and give a moderate level of comfort.
The foam is slightly more dense than other pleather pads, for example Sennheiser Momentum,
Shure SRH840 or Onkyo ES-HP300 pads.
These are fairly heavy and despite the fairly moderate clamping force tend to 'wobble' slightly with normal
head movement.
I found the clamping and headband to be slightly uncomfortable after an hour or so at home.
The cable has a remote, is fairly thick (3mm) and has about medium level of microphonics.
It is also rather short (115cm), and seems to be designed for portable use.
If you want to wear these outdoors/on-the-go simply make the headband shorter which increases the
clamping pressure dramatically, so walking around is not a problem with these, but expect wearing
times to be significantly shorter outdoors due to comfort reasons; although it probably goes
without saying - I have not tried this
[size=17.03px]Before Modification:[/size]
• Treble is recessed, flat, distant and boring.
• Mids are weak and unmusical.
• Bass is dominant, bleeds all over the entire sound - mostly mid-bass. *yuck*
• Soundstage is limited
• Overall presentation is echoey like you're not just listening to the headphone, but the enclosure around the drivers.
- I don't find this pleasant at all. I've actually heard very few headphone which exhibited this problem.
- In fact I've predominantly heard it in over-sized headphones from the 70's, much less anything from the past 10 years.
• Timbre is like that of a cheap overly-bassy car-audio system with a sub-woofer 10 times more powerful than the rest.
Modification:
First I needed to assess the issues with the design of this headphone, and address them individually.(click on photos to enlarge)
| The first problem that immediately presents itself is the space in the cups are taken up [size=inherit]largely by the control electronics, predominantly in the right ear cup.[/size] This presents another issue - I don't want to accidentally discharge any static around this area, especially since most common damping materials can very quickly and easily build up a high voltage. | |
| The driver here clearly shows two major problems. Two of the vent holes are completely uncovered/un-damped. This is largely where the overpowering bass comes from. | |
| Just a quick photo of the inside of the left cup showing the difference in size of the PCBs in both | |
| | This shows the 2nd major flaw with this headphone. There is a huge gap between the baffle and the cup even with the ear pads on. If you enlarge the photo you can see I have filled this gap with thick fuzzy felt. If this felt was not here, I would be able to take a photo ALL THE WAY through, and with a light on the other side, it would be visible just how much sound and air can get in and out of this gap. |
| Here are the mods: • Both rear driver vents are damped with micropore tape. • Two baffle vents (face side) are given extra damping with micropore tape. • Baffle is mass-loaded with a few 1cm squares of sorbothane • Fairly thick square of gauze/rolled-cotton sits directly behind the driver. • (not in photo) thin plastic between cotton and PBCs to shield from static. • 5mm felt around the inner circumference of the cups to seal the gap (in above pic) - See pics with felt not present for comparison. |
[size=17.03px]What the mods do:[/size]
• Damping the 2 driver vents bring the bass immediately to a slightly more reasonable level.
• Gauze/rolled-cotton dampens bass and clears up cup reflections nicely - the thicker the gauze, the
less bass there will be.
- If you use too much, it will negatively 'choke' the soundstage, making a more claustrophobic sound.
• Damping 2 baffle ports has a positive effect on bass decay. tightening up the sound.
• Mass loading the baffle isn't highly necessary but seems to tighten up the sound.
• The ring of 5mm felt drastically improves the soundstage presentation and makes everything more
clear and 'present'. It also tightens the bass a lot, so I would consider this a very important mod.
- I have not tried other materials, but any alternative that provides a good seal while allowing the ear pads
to fit back on would also work.
After Modification:
• Treble is now present and a feather touch rolled-off. Very pleasant now, but a bit splashy and lacking 'snap'.• Mids, especially mid-high mids are quite forward which I find quite musical. Timbre is MUCH more accurate now.
• Bass is much tighter, no longer stands out and bleeds all over everything.
• Soundstage is still small, but separation and instrument positioning now make much more sense. Overall not great.
• Overall presentation is now like a bass-heavy monitor with a fairly small but precise soundstage and presentation.
• Sound is much tighter, cleaner especially in the high mids.
The overall timbre is still lacking due to some dips in the FR especially in the low-mids and treble.
But what's left is a very 'fun' bass-heavy V-shaped response.
With my tuning, has about the same, maybe a tiny bit more bass than an Onkyo ES-HF300, but a bit more high-mids,
which is overall not a bad combination/compromise.
Overall generalizations and observations:
• About the same level of audio quality as a Philips SHP2500, maybe in some way as good as a
Sennheiser PX 100 but very different presentations.
• More bass than most headphones before and after modding.
• Less treble than some (less than neutral)
• Smaller soundstage than most.
• Digs deeper sub bass at high volumes than most. Quite a big plus especially after modification.
• Good drivers, poorly implemented.
• After mods sounds better than most gaming headsets I've heard.
All photos by me.
[size=20.007px] Thank you for reading.[/size]
